baked oats green chile chicken enchiladas chow mein bakery-style butter cookies


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flash of brilliance

July 24th, 2011

Recipe: stromboli

You know how I have that terrible habit of sitting on the NOAA forecast website in winter in the hopes that my reloading of the page will somehow change “sunny” to “blizzard”? I do the same in summer except I am hoping to change “sunny” to “severe thunderstorm warning”. You might say I have a mild obsession with lightning. I love watching a thunderstorm, but I love photographing lightning even more. We had a pretty spectacular light show plow through the other night (I heard Breckenridge got hammered) and we’ve had a good strong run of monsoonal thunderstorms nearly every afternoon until a few days ago.


the crazy squigglies are so cool

double strike

right through the cloud

ribbon lightning (right is near 100% zoom)



I don’t actually know what our thunderstorm cycle was doing since Wednesday because I’ve been helping Jeremy host an astrophysics retreat in Boulder and at our home in the mountains. There was a good deal of wining, dining, a little hiking, and lots of science with some of the brightest (and nicest) young superstar ninjas in the field from around the country. I played hostess, caterer, event coordinator, photographer, and dog wrangler. It was exhausting, but it was great (and it’s why you didn’t hear from me all week).

a toast at the kitchen to kick things off the first night

fruit and pastries for a marathon day of science

a room with a view

marla addresses the group

jeremy wraps up the afternoon

winding down with happy hour at the kitchen upstairs

but they still have science on the brains

lisa brought her 2 month old daughter from hawai’i, by herself… lisa kicks ass

morning hike and discussion at 11,000 feet

final toast to a whirlwind of science and fun

dinner at our house

ending the retreat with dessert and laughter on the deck



From my perspective it seemed like it was a successful retreat. Jeremy agrees. It involved an enormous amount of effort and planning, but I think Jeremy and I make an effective and efficient team. We like working together. Now we get to trade places as I’ll be hosting and teaching the Food and Light workshop next week. After that, I think I’ll be happy to not host an event for a while (but just a little while).

There is something to be said for simplifying your menu in summer. I tend to gravitate toward the recipes that require little effort and time because we seem to have so much going on in the warm months. I blame the gobs of daylight hours. We like the recipes that produce plenty of leftovers too because there are days when you get back from a bike ride or a hike and want to eat right away. Stromboli has always been on my list of bread-based foods to make. I tried it out early this summer and we were hooked.


make some pizza dough

let it rise

flatten half of the dough on a floured surface

roll it into a rectangle



**Jump for more butter**

i could get used to this

July 18th, 2011

Recipe: mee krob

It’s taken me a few years to figure this out, but I think I have finally turned a photo roadtrip into a nice mini vacation for Jeremy as well. This basically means I’m learning to chill out a little. Just a little. And that’s hard to do in a place like Crested Butte when hillsides are bursting with colorful wildflowers while snow still lingers on the high peaks. I’m getting a lot better at knowing when to call it good, put the camera gear away and grab the bike to go exploring with Jeremy. We helped a fellow who broke his shoulder (he went over the handlebars on the trail) down the trail to get help. We even hit the bike park!


not a bad place to live – at the base of mount crested butte

and the town serves up some creative martinis (red raspberry)

cruising the lupines

it’s mind-blowingly beautiful



All of the snaps from the trip are on the photo blog.

Everywhere we went, there was a constant buzzing – that high-pitched whistle of hummingbirds zipping from flower to tree to chasing off another hummingbird and back to the flowers. They are territorial little guys. I spied two kinds.


the broad-tailed hummingbird

and the rufous



More hummingbirds here.

There aren’t a lot of places that make me question how much I love living where I live, but Crested Butte is certainly one of them. I’m not the wistful type and yet that place makes me point to random plots of land and ask Jeremy, “Is there any way you could be a freelance astrophysicist?”


wild iris and yellow paintbrush

delphinium, golden eye, and mule’s ears

lupine, scarlet gilia, and golden eye

sticky geranium



See the whole set on the photo blog.

Realistically, I’m doubting I could make the move to Crested Butte because I need to get my Asian on. We’re not just talking about Asian restaurants, I’m referring to Asian groceries. I need to feed my addiction for all things Chinese, Thai, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Malaysian so I can make favorite dishes like mee krob. I had no idea what preserved garlic was (it’s really pickled garlic), but found it at my local Asian grocer, much to my delight!


rice vermicelli, fish sauce, vinegar, pickled garlic, tamarind, shrimp, sprouts, paprika, sugar

pickled/preserved garlic



**Jump for more butter**

from this side of hell yeah

July 14th, 2011

Recipe: french toast

Greetings from Crested Butte, Colorado! It’s one of my favorite places to be, especially right now at the height of the wildflower bloom. We chucked our bikes on top of the car and packed our hiking shoes in case the flowers were a bust. Turns out the flowers are great – but we’re still hiking and biking because it’s just too good not to. So it’s a lot of shooting, hiking, biking, eating, and not getting much sleep. Totally worth it. I’ve been taking some snappies with my backup camera because I realized a few trips back that I don’t do enough of that on my photoshoots.


lupine in bloom

the beautiful elk mountains

aspens in the rain



The town of Crested Butte is as charming as its surrounding wilderness is spectacular. We made sure to swing by our favorite place for dinner the first night – Secret Stash.

a soaking rain enveloped the town

there are t-shirts to be had

the interior decor is mountain hippie

but the pizza is 100% nomsilicious



This is where I’m happiest. Not Crested Butte specifically (although it is definitely in my top 5 favorite places ever), but outside, in and around the mountains. As offices go, I have to say it’s not too shabby. Not too shabby at all.

stalking hummingbirds

we are talking carpets of wildflowers

mount crested butte

mix and match



I’ve often said that breakfast is my least favorite meal of the day. I am just not a brekkie kind of girl. And if I *do* eat breakfast, I prefer something of the savory persuasion like bacon, sausage, or hash browned potatoes. Because we are waking up so early to shoot sunrise on this trip, we start to feel hungry by 9 am because we’ve been up for several hours by then. For simplicity’s sake, I just stuff a bunch of fresh fruit into my mouth and keep on shooting. But the one thing I love with fresh fruit is French toast.

cinnamon, vanilla, challah, eggs, and milk

thick slices of bread



**Jump for more butter**